[lbo-talk] Scientism

[andie nachgeborenen]

It i tiresome to point out (a) that for Kuhn and all
neopragmatists that all dogmas are provisional -- CL
Stevenson wrote back in the LP days of the provisional
or conditional a priori, (b) this follows directly
without further inference from the Quine-Duhem thesis,
explained earlier here as the basis for scientific
dogmatism, and (c) the elevation of a doctrine to
dogma in science turns on how strongly it is held, so
that the issue of how much disconfirmation or anomaly 
is required to dislodge it is really crucial. For Kuhn
fundamental dogmas were`displaceable by scientific
revolutions. Watson's central dogma would require less
of a challenge, but will not be taken to fold (and has
not despite challenges), for example by the results of
a single Popperian crucial experiment or a dozen. So,
yes, it's a dogma. Calling it a dogma isn't a joke.
It's a prejudice -- a characteristically productive
one,

--- knowknot at mindspring.com wrote:


> On 10/7/06, andie nachgeborenen said in part:
> 
>  > [an example of prejudices in] science, which
>  > is just the practice of scientists, . . .
> [include]
>  > specific dogmas of various sciences, such as
>  > Watson's felicitously and honestly named
>  > Central Dogma of Molecular Biology.  *  *  *
> 
> There is not _any_ scientist familiar with Watson
> and his work or, for that 
> matter, any of his students who thought about what
> he said when he lectured 
> in his undergraduate courses Harvard/Radcliffe in
> the late 1950s and 1960s 
> when he spoke_ironically_ (and with his usually
> present "twinkle" in his 
> eyes and funny looking smile and related tick) --
> but only in that sense 
> "felicitously" -- of the "Central Dogma" who does or
> even could reasonably 
> understand him to have used that term as if (actual)
>  "dogma".
> 
> To the contrary, "Central Dogma" when used by Watson
> (and his colleagues) 
> has always been understood to indicate just a
> semi-humorous (even if if 
> also comparatively emphatic because important
> component element of his and 
> his colleagues' discoveries) synonym for "working
> hypothesis" (i.e, part of 
> a "theory").
> 
> That the "Central Dogma" reflects "prejudice" is
> (simplistically) true, but 
> relatedly only in the sense that "prejudice" can
> mean, in substance if not 
> in these exact words, "what one presumes will
> probably be so if the 
> available evidence is fairly evalutated and/but
> subject to change if later 
> discovered evidence warrants so concluding."
> 
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>
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> 

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